Meteor Mail
by Zamael
Summary: Birthdays are supposed to be fun and great, but Katara's sixteenth one wasn't very happy one, because an important guest was missing. But it got a turn to the better when he sent his congratulations in the most unconventional way possible. Kataang.


Winter meant many things: For most people, cold and snow were the first to come to mind, not to mention Yule (or Christmas, as a certain ancient, almost yet not _quite_ vanished cult would say), but the one that conserns this story the most, yet still not very much, is the shorter days. Indeed, it was only what people would call a late afternoon at the Northern Air Temple, which was still bustling with activity (as much as a temple full of monks usually would, at the very least), when the darkness rushed in to fill the power gap left by the setting sun.

Only this time, the black was, unexpectedly, held back for one last moment. The monks had, for most of the day, been hearing an occasional crash or rumble from a certain mountaintop nearby, but had not thought about it too much: Rocks were just falling, or something, and it certainly had nothing to do with them. But when the very same mountaintop suddenly shot out a bright, massive light, that lasted for a split second before moving towards the south almost faster than the eye could see, they began to wonder that maybe it had been something else, the rumbling. Very beautiful, though.

They knew of one person in existence, admittedly a person that just happened to be around the mountains right now, who was capable of doing something like that, but they had no idea why he would. Truly, the guardian spirit of Earth would have better things to do than send random fireblasts to the sky! Such as training young monks, or bringing peace to the world, or something. On yet another mountain, guru Pathik had been slightly amazed as well, at first, but then he remembered what day it was. Chuckling, he returned to his meditations, which were much more important than some flashes of light anyway.

--

The day was ending at the Southern Water Tribe as well, where it had been a moderately important one, for it was on that day when a certain girl had, in terms of age (and only physical age, some would add), become a woman. For all the young men at both poles, it had meant a chance of a lifetime: To marry a very powerful, very beautiful, politically very well positioned woman was something everyone hoped. They had been harassing the poor girl since the very first sunrays at dawn, hordes of boys who had never even met her before, only heard about her. Katara had been friendly and polite at first, turning each other down with a sad smile and an apology, but even she was only a human, with a limited patience, and by noon she had been utterly fed up and, instead of meeting any more hopefuls, had chosen to make a massive ice sculpture showing her in a passionate kiss with none other than Avatar Aang, with a sign below that said "Yes, that really happened. Now fuck off, losers, you don't have a snowball's chance in hell." She hadn't been bothered since.

For Katara, fending off suitors was not what made the day important, but seeing the faces of old friends, some of which she hadn't seen for over a year, almost since the end of the war. The only ones she had seen since the old gang had separated had been Sokka and Suki, and even that only because Kyoshi Island was moderately close. She thought it a bit sad that it required them such petty excuses as birthdays to come together, but was happy regardless, and gave each an enthusiastic greeting. Zuko looked as nice as ever, though she didn't like the beard: Was it some Fire Nation tradition to have an ominous and extremely unstylish goatee?

"What're you talking about?", he asked her. "Everyone loves this back home. You just don't have a sense of fashion."

As proud and independent as she was, Toph had not dared to come alone: With nothing but ice under her feet, she was truly and utterly blind. Thus, she had gone to Kyoshi Island well in advance, and now arrived along with Sokka and Suki. When she had heard Sokka's loud moan and a thud, she had to ask why he had fainted, and Suki told her about Katara's statue. All three girls unanimously agreed that they should have told him long before that his sister was dating the Avatar.

Iroh, as jolly as ever, had been among the last to arrive, blaming his old bones for the slow travel. To Katara's slight dismay, he had only greeted her and talked to her rather briefly, before moving on to meet his nephew. She watched in amusement how Zuko's first quite genuine smile quickly turned into a forced one, when Iroh kept talking to him about any and every subject concerning both his duty as the Fire Lord and his personal life with Mai. When his uncle finally bowed down to coo and chat with his niece-in-law's yet unborn baby, Zuko finally gave up compeletely and frowned. (A/C: I don't know if niece-in-law is a proper word. Just bear with me, okay?)

But the person she had expected the most was yet to arrive. Slowly her initial happiness faded away, to be replaced by a compelete certainty that he was still coming and wasn't stuck in some semi-important mission or whatnot, which was then replaced by hope, which, by the nightfall, had turned into a false one, forcibly keeping her hopeful and happy, despite knowing better. In front of her visitors she kept happy faces, pretending that all the admittedly pretty nice presents she was given were everything she had always wanted, dancing politely with both Zuko and Haru, who weren't half bad, and feigning of being impressed at Master Pakku's show and Zuko's fireworks, which, though they really were quite impressive, were not enough to replace the hollow feeling in her heart.

Being so bored and all, Katara was the first to notice the new star at the now dark sky. It was very large and bright orange colored, and several stars were covered under its light. She was about to make a wish, as Gran-Gran had told her to do when she saw things like that on the sky, one about Aang and that he hadn't forgotten her birthday, when it started to look to her that it was growing still. Now it was as bright as a full moon (which, incidentally, was near empty at that night), and other people had finally begun to realize it's presence - except for Toph, obviously. With screaming and shouting and "It's coming straight towards us!"-ing, guests and villagers took cover, hiding in their tents or under the table. Sokka was among the first. Katara stood up from the table as well, but was stopped by a strong hand catching hers, and gently pulling her back to her chair.

"Relax," Zuko said. "It's going to fly past us. I know my comets." And sure enough, it passed their heads by maybe twenty feet - Katara could feel its heat - scratching Sokka's mighty watchtower before landing right outside the walls. Now Zuko was up, too, and Katara followed suit. People appeared from their hiding, confused. "Huh, we're still alive?", Sokka asked. "Hey, where're you going?" He hesitated for a split second, before following her sister and the Fire Lord, yelling after them. "Don't go in there, it could be dangerous!"

"What're you talking about?", Zuko asked him, when he had reached them. "It already crashed. It won't burn for long in here. It's harmless now."

Sokka took Toph, who had been demanding to know what was going on, by hand, and began leading her along, before responding: "Well yeah, but it might contain an ancient evil that will destroy us all!"

Katara laughed. It was her first genuine laughter for several hours. "Then your sword would be evil too, wouldn't it?"

And so the bickering continued for a minute or two, until they reached the crash site. The meteor had burned through half a mile or so of ice before stopping, creating a massive, frozen, inescapable-unless-you're-a-waterbender pit of death, in which the four now slided ("WHEEE!", went Sokka, briefly channeling all his paranoid terror to Toph, who screamed as if she would die). Upon investigation, the meteor turned out to be about the size of a large house. "I can feel something in there!", Toph exclaimed. The sudden presence of solid ground in the middle of all this cold ice had lifted her spirits considerably, and she immediately, despite Sokka's loud protests, cracked the entire rock open in a single movement. She disappeared through the crevice, and returned moments later with a metal ball about the size of her head, which she promptly handed for Katara. And when she responded with a confused look, Toph added: "You still don't get it, do you? It's a birthday present, from guess who. Now open it."

She did. The orb opened surprisingly easily, containing a single large scroll, which, upon opening, revealed another, smaller scroll, and a letter. Upon recognizing the handwriting, Katara's heart leapt. "Told you, didn't I?", victorious Toph grinned.

_Dear Katara,_

She read it all out loud, mostly for Toph's convenience, as Sokka and Zuko were peeking from behind her shoulder already.

_Really, really sorry for missing your birthday. The world still needs saving, and I already nearly gave it all for you once. I'm not going to do that again, no matter how much I wanted it._

She stopped when she noticed the confused looks the others were giving her. "Oh, he could've mastered the Avatar State at the Eastern Air Temple, but he would've had to give up me, and couldn't do it," she stated matter-of-factly. "Then he got struck by lightning." Now they all looked even more confused, but she ignored it, and kept reading:

_How're you doing? Haven't seen you for over a year. I went straight to Aunt Wu after we separated, and guess what? Turned out there were like, hundreds of would-be-airbenders around the world! The Northern Air Temple, where I am right now-_

"Wait, that thing came from the other side of the world?", Toph asked. "Whoah, Twinkletoes sure has grown up."

_-where I am right now, was full of potential! Literally everyone here could learn from me. So first I went and picked up the only other living master in the world, this old girl named Malu, and together we seeked out all the people who had Air Nomad genes in them - my people've been really busy, nudge nudge! _(Katara blushed) _- taught them some basics, and told them to head down to the closest air temple. That took a while. Then we went straight to the Northern Air Temple, and began teaching. I think we can do some tattoos any day now! Once that happens, I reckon I can finally return to you, so don't you go anywhere wandering. _

_I've also stopped here and there and found some potential guys who could learn to bend energy, and taught them what I know about the stuff. Because it'd be just unfair for me to be the only energybender in existence, and because this stuff is simply marvelous! You can do so many other things than take off a guy's power. It's like you, Katara, used waterbending just for water and ice before learning that you can bend vines and... Yeah._ He was going to say blood. Katara knew it, and was glad that he didn't. She still wasn't compeletely used to the idea of controlling people.

_Take this meteor, for instance. It landed very close to a Water Tribe village. It could have smashed a poor guy or two, or even you, who might've been unlucky enough to be on its path._ "Yeah!", Sokka said hotly. "You've got some explaining to do, young man!" Katara hushed him: "Shush, he's gonna explain it right now." _Well... Actually, it's a bit hard to explain. Just be content with "energybending rules"._

"That wasn't much of an explanation," Toph said.

_Appa's doing great. He's missing you all, too, and I think he's a bit jealous of those new balloons: The Mechanist modified them to work compeletely on airbending! I've had to tell him time and time again that they are a necessary replacements because he's the last of his kind, and we'd all choose bisons over some stupid balloons any day, right guys? _Everyone nodded in unison. _I've sent you a paw-print from him and Momo. _The gigantic ink foot took a big portion of the paper. _Anyway, once I get out of here, some of the new airbenders also go travelling. There will be bald tattooed heads everywhere! Just like old times._

_Oh and, Zuko? I know you're there, so I might as well let you know about your father: He did exactly as we predicted._ Now everyone, Katara included, set their eyes at Zuko, whose face was indifferent: "I banished Ozai, so he could learn the same way I did. And that's all I'm telling you about the subject: You'll just be worried if I say another word." _The thing we didn't predict was that the whole thing left him a little spark of firebending: If he kept training hard for a few decades, he might get back to his original strength, but I doubt he has it in him anymore. I'm going to check back at him on my way there._

_But back to you, Katara. See that little scroll? That's my gift for you: It contains the most advanced, most powerful, most secret, ultimate, etcetera etcetera you get it, waterbending technique, __to which I got the instructions straight from this ancient Water Tribe Avatar__. I'm pretty certain it's been a lost skill for thousands of years - if you can master this skill, and I believe that you can, you'll be able to impress even master Pakku!_

"Hey, it tells you how to breathe underwater!", Sokka yelled enthusiastically. He had taken the smaller scroll from Katara and opened it, though now she immediately snatched it back. Her hands were trembling in excitement as she read it. "That is so cool...", Toph quite succintly summed up her feelings for this. She was torn apart between getting to practice the new trick, and reading the rest of Aang's letter. This she pondered for several minutes, until Zuko opened his mouth: "You know, within the time you spent thinking that stuff, you could've read the rest of the letter and got practicing by now!"

"Yeah, that's... Okay. Makes sense." And she kept reading. _I'm sure you're gonna have great fun with it. When we meet again, I'm gonna show you the lost sunken Aether Empire! It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen! Rivals you in beauty: Can't say which one's prettier, because that'd be like comparing a good book and a cute lemur. _"Not very romantic thing to say," Sokka remarked, but Katara blushed, because she knew exactly what Aang had meant.

_Please try to have a nice party even without me, and don't let it bother you that I'm not there. We're gonna see each other soon, I promise. I miss you terribly, I know how it's like, but just try. For me._

_Love you._

_Aang_

_P.S. Tell Sokka that when we meet, I'm not going to send his mail with meteors. He'll have to settle for hawky. _"Aww, rats!", Sokka cursed. "Can he read my mind now, too?" _Yes, I can read your mind, Sokka,_ Katara read out loud._ I know what you're thinking, and shame on you!_

"Wait, it really says that?"

"No, I was just kidding."


End file.
